


Dreamfarers

by LeonaM (Lumenne)



Category: Cinderella - All Media Types, Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Original Work, Rapunzel (Fairy Tale)
Genre: Adoption, Bodyswap, Brotherly Love, Character Death, Cinderella Elements, Coming of Age, Costume Parties & Masquerades, Developing Friendships, Dysfunctional Family, Enemies to Friends, F/M, Falling In Love, Family, Family Feels, Fantasy, First Love, Fish out of Water, Forbidden Love, Imaginary Friends, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Love Triangles, Original Fiction, Original Universe, POV Female Character, POV First Person, Platonic Relationships, Portals, Princes & Princesses, Rags to Riches, Rapunzel Elements, Romance, Royalty, Secret Identity, Secret Relationship, Sister-Sister Relationship, Sisters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:14:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28509510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lumenne/pseuds/LeonaM
Summary: In the kingdom of Redora, Tabbris, a servant of a rank so low that she’s considered invisible, accidentally visits a dream world reserved for the royal family alone. Thanks to the power of the Dream Stone, things she has wished for her entire life are dropped into her lap one after the other—including a loving family and a dashing young man who seems to have come straight out of one of her favorite princess-tales.Tabbris faces many challenges in that dream life, learning about herself: who she really is, and that she is capable of so much more than her rank allows her in both the dream world, and the real. As her true inner self bleeds more and more into the real world, her chances of being caught become almost inevitable, yet doors open for her to begin forming true bonds of friendship, family, and even romance with the very sort of people she once hated and feared.As the walls of her dreams and reality close in with inevitable, fatal consequences, she must find the courage to treat directly with Prince Kazfel, the most difficult challenge of all.
Relationships: Original Character(s)/Original Character(s), Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	1. The Dream Stone

**Author's Note:**

> [****** Note 2/15/21: I still have a backlog of at least 12 chapters left, but due to major revisions requested by my betas that are coming to what's already been posted, I'm putting this on hiatus. When ready to resume updates, I will be posting this work to Royal Road under the username LeonaM and will update here with a link. I was planning to crosspost, but I believe I will be making a full move now. Thanks for the views so far! :) ******]
> 
> Throughout the story, there will be colored scene break graphics to help keep you oriented as to which world Tabbris is in.
> 
> Blue for Tab in the real world.  
> 
> 
> Red for Tab in the dream world.  
> 
> 
> Other colors will be used in brief scenes that are not depicting Tabbris.

In the garden of the King's manor, I was with the crowd of people that had gathered around a pedestal crowned by a large, crystalline sphere. The sphere, appearing like darkest violet glass that reflected pinks and blues in the bright summer sun, was as big as a carriage and twice as heavy. It was said that one could hear or even feel a low ringing when they came close, or so claimed those privileged few who were permitted to approach it.

The Dream Stone, they called it.

The Keeper had called the assembly for the King and his household. The wizened official's voice sounded as wrinkly as his face, but he still spoke loud enough for all to hear: “For generations, the royal family of Redora has used dreams as a place to prepare for their governmental duties. A private place to learn who they are, and how they will rule. A safe place where mistakes can be made, and learned from.” He smiled, looking down at the finely-dressed child who looked back up at him. “Today, our young Prince too will begin this journey. Prince Kazfel, I present to you this hammer and chisel. Claim your shard.”

The boy took the tools, then glanced at his father and waited for a nod before walking to the stone, his small form dwarfed in its shadow. Whether it was the knowledge that so many eyes were on him, or fear of the Dream Stone itself, Kazfel moved slowly, stiffly, to place the chisel against a glittering violet ridge. The _tink_ of his hammer hitting the chisel rang out sharply.

He'd swung hard, knocking a good-sized shard into a silk cloth from his pocket. Several smaller bits of the stone flew off into the grass.

After a few parting words from the Keeper, the royal family made their way back into the manor to continue the ceremony indoors, where Prince Kazfel would dreamfare for the first time. The Unseen servants of the household returned to their duties but for a few who remained behind to quickly gather the fallen shards with kerchiefs and return them, heads bowed and eyes fearfully downcast, to the Keeper. Among them was a slightly chubby little girl whose long black hair swept the ground in waves when she knelt to pick up pieces of the Dream Stone.

That little girl was me, Tabbris.

When there were no more shards to be found, I too returned to the manor. After nightfall, I went to my quarters to rest.

Yet another dumb ceremony for that needle-nosed monkey, the Prince. I sighed, then began to rummage in my set of drawers for a sweet I'd stashed days before, not noticing when something fell out of my hair into one of them. It was instantly covered up as I pushed things aside in search of that bit of hidden candy. When I had located the treat, I sat on my cot and retrieved a half-dozen handmade dolls from under my pillow.

They were made of various discarded bits and bobs; sticks, broken pens, or an old bent spoon for a body, cornsilk or braided threads for hair, and old rags and scraps of fabric for clothing. They'd acted in dozens of plays about nobles and princesses, most of which I'd learned by hiding and listening to others read aloud from books. Most often, the ragged little dolls played out a tale about a maiden who went on adventures, wore beautiful clothes, made lots of friends and won her handsome prince. The story was one of my favorites, even though _I_ lived in reality. Fairy tales like that didn't happen when the maiden in question was so low on the social scale that she didn't even exist.

Summers later, as a young woman of seventeen, I'd stopped playing with dolls but still shamelessly daydreamed and hoarded filched treasures like some sort of pack rat.

“What on earth are you looking for?” a muffled, half-asleep voice asked. “It sounds awfully important.”

“It _is_ important.” I pulled a shallow box out from underneath my cot and opened it, continuing the racket I'd been making by raking my fingers through the various knick knacks, papers and other items it held. “It's a scrap that got torn off one of the horses' blankets. I found it in the stable the other day. Blue and black silk.”

“Ooooohhh!” There was a scraping sound from the room next door just after that excited, girlish noise.

Once I found the scrap, I went to the back of my room and sat, leaning a shoulder against the wall next to a bunch of dried flowers that had been hung there. Tilting the flowers revealed a small hole into the next room. I could see the back of Rowa's brown-haired head on the other side, suggesting that the scraping sound had been her sliding her shelf away from the secret hole. She turned to peer through. “Let me see, let me see!”

“Don't get any ideas,” I warned before stretching the fabric in front of the opening for her to view. “I'm going to use it as a wrap.”

“It's not big enough to cover your overgrown mop. But no worries, I'll take it!” Her little pinkie poked through the hole and waggled enticingly, a baited hook waiting for a fish.

Ignoring her demand, I simply rolled my heavy hair up around the scrap like dough around a rolling pin and then folded it up, tying the ends of the silk into a knot.

It didn't take my neighbor long enough to realize she wasn't getting her way. “Come on, Tab! You're so mean! You never let me—” Thankfully, whatever else she had to say was interrupted by the ding of a morning bell.

“That's mine!” I yelped, hastily nabbing my apron as I went for the door.

“Mine—Aww, Tabbris!” Rowa whined through the wall.

“Get up earlier next time, lazy slug!”

I hurried to the kitchen and picked up the waiting breakfast tray. On it was a plate of toast and fruit, a small cup of coffee, and a pot of cream. The toast was cut diagonally into four pieces and had no crust, plus a little green garnish. The toast of a spoiled prince. With a grin almost wide enough to split my lip, I glanced around for observers and then slipped a piece of that soft, sweet, toasted bread into my mouth. It was funny, what nonsense I'd discovered we scrubs could get away with. Kind of hard to get called out when people literally never saw or spoke to you. That meant that, so long as another scrub didn't see me, I never had to come up with excuses for missing triangles of royal toast.

When I entered the Prince's solar, he was reading at a small table at the foot of his bed, wearing an undershirt and black breeches. His back was straight, one elbow hooked over the backrest of the chair, knees crossed, his pointy chin and even pointier nose up in the air, eyes sharply downcast to read the thick volume he held in one hand. Only the blessed Prince Kazfel could be oh-so-regal in his underthings.

I set the tray on the table in front of him. Kazfel looked at the toast and his big walnut-brown eyes gave the subtlest of shakes. As soon as my back was turned, I grinned again and went to his walk-in wardrobe. Some girls only had dolls to dress up. Me?

I had a prince. And _he_ had an entire wardrobe of finery I could wade through, trailing my fingers along the buffet of fabrics; smooth velvets, flowing silks, supple leathers, and the softest downy cottons, all in any color one could ever want. Waiting on the royals in this manner was a perk of demonstrating creative inclination early in a scrub's “career.” It was, for the most part, the only creative outlet I had ever since. Most days, I went for the darker colors. Darkest blue, maroon, black. Not only did they match the darkness in his empty, soulless eyes, but they also looked good draped over his slim, olive-toned frame. Today, I chose a maroon tunic with a wide black belt, a black jacket with gold filigree, and plain gold rings for his ears.

Like a good mannequin, he lifted each arm to accept a sleeve, swapping his book to the other hand with practiced ease, never once looking away from it, then ducking into the opening as I pulled the shirt over his head. There was a similar routine for the jacket, then the belt and earrings were properly clasped. After that, I fetched his cosmetics case from the wardrobe. While he worked on his morning meal, I displayed my own practiced ease with a delicate horsehair paint brush.

A smoothing tinted lotion was brushed onto his cheeks and forehead as he ate, a blended shade of brown over both eyelids, and little dab of flesh-color to cover the dark birth mark on his lower lip. I personally didn't find it off-putting, but I _was_ irritated that it managed to appear almost perfectly round, in such an aesthetic location. Of _course_ it did. But my opinion, or anyone else's, didn't matter. The King's portrait glared sternly down from above Kazfel's bed, a constant reminder that he demanded _perfection_.

As usual, the Prince reached the limit of his patience as I was combing his dark chestnut hair. He stood up mid-stroke, put on his boots, and walked out. That was my cue to slip back into the wardrobe, possessively clutching the cosmetics case under my arm.

Later, while I was still in the wardrobe, a different bell rang out. I glared up at the direction the sound had come from and pulled another push pin from between my lips. I was using them to fasten a large blue shirt about my waist, then a black chiffon sash over that. That particular shade of blue made my eyes look vivid in Kazfel's mirror, especially with the thin line of black paint I'd applied around them. How I longed for a beautiful dress made from fabrics like that!

“That's Amri's bell, anyway,” I mumbled through the pins. “Rowa will shank me if I take his, too.” I already owed her for a number of things. It'd be impossible to live with her if I kept adding to the list of favors I'd have to pay back, and this would be a big one in her eyes. I decided to leave her to it and continue my “work” until it was time to check in.

After a few minutes, the bell rang a second time.

“ _Again?_ She must be tied up with another chore. Chafing like sand in her pants about it, no doubt.” With a sigh, I dismantled the mock-up dress and wiped the paint from my eyes. I would have to return later to make the bed, clean and dust the room, but for now, it was down to the kitchen to grab Amri's tray.

He was sitting in bed, half-slumped over with a vacant look in his black eyes, when I arrived with his breakfast. It wasn't uncommon to find him that way in the morning; everyone in the manor knew he had troubled sleep. I placed the tray on his nightstand and went to open the drapes, then to open his smaller, traditional wardrobe.

Amri was paler than Kazfel, with darkest brown hair, the same high cheekbones and large, soft-looking eyes the royals always seemed to have, but a strong jawline and snub nose that were a bit rarer in the family. Compared to the willowy prince, he was broader of shoulder and more robust as a whole, even down to the shape of his hands. I chose a simple white button-down shirt and turquoise teardrop earrings for him.

He had begun eating sluggishly, and during a pause between bites, I offered a sleeve. He kept right on eating; a grown man managing to look almost childlike as he sleepily hugged his elbows into his sides. He hated this ritual, but couldn't dismiss whoever came to do it. Kind of hard to use words or meaningful looks when there was, for all intents and purposes, no one to direct them to.

Waiting semi-patiently, I stood around and held the white shirt until he was done with his meal. He then took the shirt and put it on by himself, fastening every last button to the very top. He also took the comb when I raised it a moment later, ran it through his thick hair exactly once, and tossed it on the bed. He left the earrings but snatched his dreamcord—a decorative leather neck strap with a metal slot for a shard of the Dream Stone—from the nightstand on his way out. His behavior was odd for a royal, I mused as I started to straighten the mess of tangled covers on his bed, but he'd been like that as long as I'd been assigned to the King's home, when my summers could have been counted on one hand.

The royal man-children were fed, dressed and rooms cleaned for some time before a third morning bell rang. It was a clear, bright _ting_ of a sound that might make someone smile if they didn't know what it meant. It made my blood run cold. I was thankful to be already occupied with raking out the ashes from the big fireplace in the kitchen—very important, as it had to be done in time to start cooking for supper. When it was clear that the bell wasn't going to ring again, the hair on the back of my neck finally relaxed. Another scrub must've taken that one. I hoped it wasn't Rowa.

That evening, things were unusually quiet on her side of the wall. “You okay over there?” I gently inquired, peering through the hole.

“I am _not_ okay,” came her sulky voice.

“So you got The Bell?”

“I did. Bental was hanging around, so I couldn't wait and see if someone else took it.” Her pouting face appeared momentarily before she pressed her forehead against our shared wall. Her next words, muttered into the plain wooden panel, were indecipherable, but definitely whiny.

I sat with my side to the wall and began to unravel my hair from the makeshift silken wrap. “Did he read your mind again?”

“Are you being sarcastic with me, Tabbris?” She didn't wait for an answer, shoving a finger through the hole to point accusingly at me. “I know _you_ don't believe he has some sort of creepy magic, but I swear, I can feel him _watching_ me, no matter if I'm in front of or behind him, even though he pretends to ignore us like everyone else does.”

She was right about that first part being nonsense, but I knew that the feeling she was talking about was definitely real. She was referring not to our overseer Bental—though we all suspected he had eyes in the back of his head—but to the one who rang the bell: King Isenfel himself. None of the Unseen liked to wait on that man on the rare occasions that he rang for a private meal. That fear of making some sort of mistake, of drawing his notice... I quickly doubled down on that thought, trying to focus instead on Rowa. I looked at the untied silk scrap in my hand. Not good enough.

Very carefully and quietly, I turned over my dark and dreary closet of a room with the help of some oil lamps. Somewhere, buried deep in a long-forgotten spot, was an actual coin some visiting noble had dropped once. That would cheer her up, I was sure.

I knelt to dig through my chest of drawers. At the first sign of shininess under the mess in the bottom drawer, I grabbed the item and held it up into the light. It was not a metallic shine. Blue, purple, and pink all reflected onto my face and the wall behind the dresser. The reflections seemed to fade in and out as I stared stupidly at the forbidden crystal shard.

Then everything else faded out, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is the result of my 2021 New Year's resolution: Get over the anxiety, take that terrifying first step and post! I love what I'm doing and I want to share, and I hope that there are others out there who like the same kind of story that I do.
> 
> To start off, I've posted the first three chapters to hopefully give a good feel for the story. My plan is to update once a week on Fridays, maybe sometimes include some related art along with it. I've got a good buffer written up and a full outline completed. This is book one of three planned.


	2. Your Daughter, Sir

I slowly woke to the scent of grass and the sound of evening crickets.

Being outside was a rare treat, so for a few moments I kept my eyes closed and basked in the vivid dream, loathe to fully wake up and face another day's chores. A deep breath drew an actual blade of grass into my nostril, and I jerked away as if it'd been a spider trying to crawl in there. Getting to my feet proved difficult, as my legs became entangled with an oddly soft fabric. I leaned against a nearby tree and rearranged what turned out to be a white skirt, now sadly grass-stained. But the stain was something I noticed later.

Just then, I was just a little more concerned with the fact that I was _outside_. Also, I was wearing _silk_. _A noble's silk dress._

The tree beside me was steps away from the reedy banks of a pond, the likes of which I'd never seen from even the uppermost windows of the King's manor. Redora had numerous brooks and rivers and tiny garden ponds, but nothing so wide and still, smelling of dirt and algae and dotted with wild green pads upon its surface and the shadows of fish darting below. Fear was temporarily replaced with wonder. I couldn't help but take a closer look, stooping to touch the clear, cool water.

The sound of my own voice startled me just as much as the sight of my reflection in the pond. A lusty, feminine shriek straight out of a melodramatic stage play and a small, pale, elegant face to match—neither of which belonged to me. I shattered the image with a panicked swipe.

The urge to scream uncontrollably was strong, but then I remembered what I had been doing just before waking up. “That crystal,” I said in someone else's voice, and looked around me, drinking it all in. The sky, the fresh air, the grass, the fascinating pond. “This is the dream world, isn't it?”

Though still a bit breathless, I was much calmer now that I understood what had happened. I looked back at the stranger's reflection in the pond, squinting a little. The girl who looked back at me was blurry among the stirred-up dirt and ripples from my earlier attack on the water, but she was definitely red-headed and brown-eyed. She was classically beautiful, as nobles go. I could never have hoped to fit into her slim, silken dress without splitting its seams, nor compete with her face, pale and petite like a porcelain doll.

Not far from this pleasant picnic spot, a dirt road stretched away toward a town or large village. There was no doubt in my mind that it was my dream-self's home. It looked welcoming, a cheerful gathering of bright blue clay shingle roofs that matched the slowly darkening sky.

I walked to the town and cautiously made my way through the cobblestone streets to what appeared to be mostly-empty market square. There were numerous lighter, cleaner patches of stones around the perimeter and center of the square where vendor stalls used to stand. A few people were passing through on their ways home for the evening, paying no mind to me. I stood on one of the abandoned vendor sites, pondering what might have happened there and musing over the notion that, while I was in this marketplace thinking about a mysterious mass disappearance, I was also still in my own room, sound asleep on the floor. “But for how long?” I muttered aloud. “The Prince dreams for hours, sometimes. I hope this ends soon. If I'm caught...”

“You look a little lost.”

My spine went as straight as a broom handle. The man's voice hadn't been threatening. In fact, it was quite nice. Warm and buttery, with just a hint of amusement. Pure reflex on my part.

When I didn't turn, he walked around to see what this silly redhead thought was so interesting about the ground, then looked back at me. He was tall and slender, with golden brown hair and a smile keen enough to make me wonder if he knew exactly what was going on. “Looking for your father, Ana? Didn't he tell you everyone moved their stalls to the north square for the spring?” His proud bearing and fine clothes marked him as nobility, but his tone had been... remarkably flippant.

The direct eye contact didn't help, either. The shame of the Unseen—of an invisible, unwanted _scrub_ —felt heavy, as if forcibly trying to pull my head down and out of sight. It was instinctive for me. I wanted to hide. I tried to walk away, but he followed me, keeping his distance for a few paces but then swiftly catching up. I struggled to keep my gaze straight ahead, but as we walked side by side, the man bent to grin right in my face, an impish crinkle in the corners of his brown eyes, light and bright as copper.

“Here, I'll be your escort.” He bowed and offered his elbow, which I hesitantly took. I couldn't remember the last time I'd touched another person like that. His arm was warm and instantly comforting in a way I'd completely forgotten. In another lifetime, it seemed, I once had a mother who held me. It was so long ago that I couldn't even remember her face, but I was suddenly recalling what it was like, being lovingly wrapped in her arms.

If I felt much else besides a growing fear of being punished for stepping out of line, I didn't let _him_ know. In any case, I had a feeling that if this dream was to be played out properly to the waking point, I'd have to involve myself with its characters. At least, I guessed that's how it was supposed to work for the royals.

Walking in companionable silence while taking in the sights, he led me through town. The northern market was only a few blocks away, a lively place full of bright shop stands and banners and quite a few people on last-minute errands. They watched us, and some of them whispered. They knew us well, whoever we were. I avoided their judging gazes as best I could and tried to look unconcerned.

We weaved through the crowds until we reached a stand where a thin, stern-looking man wearing shades of blue and purple stood behind the counter. His brow furrowed as my escort and I approached. The younger man grinned at the merchant and released me, guiding me toward the stand with a hand hovering just shy of touching my back. “Your daughter, sir.”

The merchant, supposedly “my” father, leaned on his counter, leveling eyes with the young man. “You'd best head home, Lenne.”

“Of course, my good man. At once.” His grin deepened as he saluted the merchant, then me. There seemed to be the faintest hint of wink along with his second salute. I was all but sure I'd imagined it.

When he was gone, the merchant gave me a sharp look. “Ana, I told you to stay away from that boy.”

“Why?” The innocent question came out before I realized I'd said anything. It was definitely a mistake.

“You know very well why,” he said, a clear warning in his tone.

“I'm sorry, I must have forgotten. Can you remind me?”

The man's eyes widened, first in anger, then in sudden fear as he realized that I was being sincere. He glanced around at the other nearby stands, where passersby and salesmen alike quickly looked away. “I'm closing up. Let's go. Now.”

Perplexed by his reaction, I followed Ana's father to their home. It was a stone's throw outside of town, two roomy floors and a stable bordered with hedges. It was neither a castle nor a sprawling manor like the King's, but the family was clearly wealthy. I knew I looked the part, but I _felt_ completely out of place as I entered the grand hall and found myself surrounded by this family of strangers—the father, the mother, and a girl. My head felt like it was sinking into my shoulders as I tried to avoid eye contact with them.

The girl, a freckled sandy blonde who looked a little younger than my character, knew immediately that something was off. “Da? What's the matter?”

He hesitated before answering. “Something's wrong with your sister.”

The girl's gaze shot to me, eyes widening as she hurried over to grasp the arm of the impostor she thought was her sister. “What is it, Ana? A fever?” She moved so quickly that I automatically jerked my arm back. _No one_ had been permitted to touch me—barring punishments in the form of a flying leather strap—since I was very young. It was an accident, but the damage was done. The girl's mouth snapped shut. She looked ashamed and hurt, as if I'd slapped her.

The merchant's frown deepened. “It's happening. She's lost her memory.”

The mother gasped and clutched at the ruffle of her blouse, and I realized just how tense I really was. The sudden noise almost made me bolt. Luckily, I managed to remain where I stood. It was just a dream. I was completely in control, or so I tried to convince myself.

She was a mother who clearly wanted to comfort her daughter, taking a few steps but stopping well out of reach, shuffling from foot to foot as if an invisible wall kept her from coming any closer. She held out her hands in a palms-out calming motion to reassure “Ana” that she meant no harm.

“Lera, come with me, please,” said the father.

“Of course, dear.” She looked back at me. “It'll be okay, Ana. We'll get through this.”

With that, the parents left, presumably to go discuss the situation in private. As soon as they left the room, the younger girl looked at me, her face a strange mixture of sadness and encouraging smiles. “Well, we'll have some time before Da and Mam come back, so I might as well introduce myself. I'm Loye, your baby sister. We call you Ana, but your proper name is Anasora. We live here, in Itania. It's a nice place, but since we moved here, Da's trips back to the capital are always too far and too long, I think.”

“Anasora. And you're Loye.” I focused on the floor, mirroring Loye's slapped-face look from before. I couldn't help it. This wasn't real, but it _felt_ real. “Can you tell me more about Ana? Me, I mean?”

“You're obviously not feeling like yourself right now, but normally, you always know what you want to do, and you do it! Sometimes I wish I could be that bold. You probably got that from Da."

"What's he like?"

"His name is Calden. He runs a stall in the square, but he really makes his money through managing imports from the capital for the rest of the town. You like to call him a pokey old turtle for the time it takes him to make one trip. That always makes me laugh.”

“And our mother?”

“Mam's name is Lera.” Loye grinned, a conspiratorial chuckle escaping her lips. “She's the boss in this house.”

“I thought our father was the strict one?”

“Oh, he's strict all right. Mam sure can pull his strings, though. She gets her way by being all soft and innocent, the sweetest little doe-eyes you could ever see. She loves making beautiful things, like paintings and dresses. She taught you everything you know about sewing.”

I definitely perked up at that. “I can sew? Like, my own clothes?”

Loye nodded. “The dresses you make are so beautiful that the tailor sometimes nods at you when you wear them out in public.” Her eyes trailed down to my grass-stained skirt. “But I think you've pretty well ruined that one.”

“Sorry.” Awkwardly, I tucked the skirt in against my leg to try and hide the stain. “What about you? What are you like?”

“Me?” The freckled girl's eyes widened for a moment. “Oh, you're serious? You really don't remember me at all? Boy, this is strange, having to tell you about myself. I mean, we grew up together!” Her surprise devolved into gently incredulous laughter. “I think I'm pretty cheerful. I try to be, anyway. I love going outdoors when it's bright and warm out, but I never get to spend as much time out there as I'd like. Mam tells me that if I want to age well, I should stay out of the sun.” She paused for breath, then rambled on. “I've had a few suitors come calling, but Da 'knows rubbish when he sees it' and shut the door in their faces. I didn't like them, anyway. I already like—” Loye stopped there, a shy smile slipping out before she could stifle it.

By then, I'd forgotten about hiding the stain and was fidgeting with my fingers and plucking at the sleeves of my dress. “You've had all those suitors already? Have... Have I?”

“You've had twenty summers but never once had a suitor. I think they're all too intimidated by how pretty you are.”

“No one's _that_ pretty.”

“It must be your sparkling personality, then!” Loye's smile remained soft, but I thought I detected a mischievous twinkle in her green eyes. For some reason, it spurred me to try and defend myself.

“I've met boys. I met one today.”

“Oh? Did he talk to you? What was he like?

“He was ha—he was all right, I suppose. Skinny and dandy, you know the type. He escorted me around town.”

“Did you find out his name?”

“Our father called him Lenne.”

Loye'd been fully engrossed in the conversation, her hands balled into excited little fists against her chest, but she suddenly looked away, almost guiltily. “Oh, him. Da says we shouldn't talk to him.”

“Why is that? He never explained.”

“Well, he's... odd.”

I accidentally let out a snort. “That was kind of obvious. I've never met anyone so... friendly.”

Loye laughed brightly. “'Friendly' isn't the word Da would use!”

Now I was smiling, too. Loye's grin widened when she saw. “You seem really nice,” I said. “Are we friends?”

“Of course we are. We're _best_ friends. You always do the nicest things for me. One time you hung white paper doves in my doorway to cheer me up, and another time you polished Da's foreign coin collection and then told him I did it.” She chuckled. “I got the best hug out of that one.” Loye's eyes went distant for a moment. “He doesn't do it so much now that we're older, but he used to hug us every chance he got. He's become much busier with his work.”

I clasped my hands together in front of my thighs, studying them as a crawling feeling of shame began to eat at me again. I didn't belong here, in this weird place where Anasora had done something good and I, Tabbris the scrub, got the credit for it. There was a distinct instant of terror when I fully expected a lash to come down from reality and whip me for even wondering for one brief moment if I could do something good now, so someone might hug _me._

Loye's hand gently clasped my elbow. “It's okay, Ana.”

I nodded, but didn't actually believe it. “It's just... Never mind.”

Loye was still smiling, but her smile disappeared as she looked closer at my face. “Ana? Are you all right?”

“Hmm? Yeah... I'm...” My eyelids suddenly felt so heavy that I could barely hold them open. Then the room began to sway.

Loye took a hasty step toward me, reaching to catch her sister.

I woke up on the floor of my own room. The dream had been so real that it warred with the familiar sights around me. It was strangely comfortable in the dream world, even though I was meant to be acting as someone else. So comfortable, in fact, that I felt as if someone had physically yanked me back to reality against my will.

I leapt to my feet, whirling in expectation of seeing an intruder standing over me, but there was no one in the dim light of the lamps that were left out earlier, now fading for lack of fuel. The shard of the Dream Stone fell from my hand and dropped to the floor with a tinkling clatter. I used a corner of my apron to pick it up and stared at the crystalline surface of the tiny violet gem.

The dream had been like nothing I had ever experienced. I'd walked freely about, doing as I pleased. I spoke with “normal” people as equals—even _touched_ someone—and was part of a family. I wondered, what was going on with Anasora's? And who was Lenne? Clearly, there was some history there.

The longer I looked at the dreamshard, the more I wanted to touch it again, to go back and find out the answers to more and more questions I had about the dream world.

The problem was, I really liked having hands. Possessing two was definitely my ideal state of being. I'd heard some unpleasant rumors of a non-royal getting caught with a chunk of the Dream Stone some time before I was born. The guilty man had lost one of his hands, as well as any shred of freedom he ever had. If he was still alive, he'd be serving until he did die at one of the King's labor sites.

Nobody _ever_ liked to talk about those places.

I took a deep breath, trying to steel myself against a sudden, crippling fear. I wanted to do the right thing and give the shard back, but... if I returned it, I'd have to face the Keeper. Maybe even the King himself. I could have just left it somewhere for them to find. But if someone saw me? They wouldn't believe that a scrub just stumbled across a piece of the Dream Stone in her own dresser drawer. _If_ they even bothered to ask where I got it before taking an axe to my wrist.

Carefully, I wrapped the shard into a handkerchief and placed it back in the drawer where I'd found it. “This'll have to do until I find a real hiding spot for it.”

“For what?”

I stiffened, but immediately relaxed after recognizing Rowa's muffled voice. “Just a sweet I nabbed from the kitchen,” I said, having completely forgotten about the coin I'd been looking for earlier. “I'm saving it for later.”

“Oh, is that where you've been? I thought I'd bored you to death, or at least to sleep,” she sassed, clearly feeling somewhat more like herself. “Anyway, it's too bad your door doesn't have a lock. Better hide it well, Tabby.”

“It goes both ways, Rowa. You don't have a lock either.”

“I'll remember that, next time I actually have something worth stealing. Which is never.”

“Have you lifted any materials lately?” I asked. “Some thread or twine?”

“If you just need to tie something, I have some leather scraps that can be cut down. Trade for the sweet?”

I had to think fast. “Sorry, I decided not to wait for a ravenous Rowabeast to come and eat it when I'm not looking. All gone!”

“You—!” One brown eye appeared in the hole, glaring at me.

I couldn't help but grin at her outrage. “I'll pay you back.”

The eye rolled, then disappeared. “Shut up and take the leather.” She shoved the scraps through the too-small hole with a jam of her finger, and they popped through like the little ribbons made when meat was cranked through a grinder. “You owe me a big one, Tabbris,” Rowa growled.

“Perfect.” Still grinning wickedly, I gathered them up to tuck away for later. “I'll find something nice for you.”

“You'd better. Night, Tab.”

“Night, Rowa.”


	3. Back to Reality

I was up, dressed for work, and pacing the length of my room long before anyone else was awake the next morning. My thoughts and eyes both kept roving toward _that_ drawer, no matter how hard I tried to distract myself. It was a godsend when the Prince's bell finally rang. Once again ignoring Rowa's half-asleep whining, I zipped off to take care of Kazfel's and Amri's morning routines. Those never changed, but at least I could stay busy, and away from temptation.

The rest of the morning was quiet until it was time to check in with our overseer. I winced as I heard Rowa's too-big, secondhand shoes clomping up behind me in the corridor.

“Waaaait!” she yelped.

“Don't run,” I hissed. “And hush your voice. If Bental hears us, it'll be the strap for us both. Again.” I stubbornly kept my eyes straight ahead in case that overseer suddenly appeared, but I could see from the corner of my eye that the girl was unrepentant, frowning full bore. I knew what was coming, and braced for it.

“Bental, schmental. What can he do to me that would hurt more that what you did? You got to dress _both_ princes this morning. Again.”

“Nobody dresses Amri. And he's not a prince. He's just Kazfel's cousin.”

“'Just' his cousin? He's a _royal_.” She dropped her voice on that last word. “If anything happened to the Big Prince, he could wind up the next heir to the throne.”

There she went again. I stopped in my tracks to turn and scowl. “And stop with the politics. That stuff doesn't matter to us.”

“Sure it does. I'd rather have a nicer king. Kazfel and his dad are cold as a hog's nose on a rainy day and twice as slimy.” She was scowling back, but struggled to hold the look for long before a faintly dreamy grin crept back across her lips. “Amri's smile is pretty and I swear he _almost_ looks at me sometimes.”

“Is that your criteria for an ideal match? ' _Almost_ looks at me?'”

“It's the closest I'll ever get.”

Rowa was still just a stripling, a handful of summers younger than me, but she already knew her lot in life just as well as I did. It was sad.

In the kitchen, Bental was already waiting for us, his tall, stern frame dressed in the same ostentatious colors and patterns as always. Functioning as something of a personal manservant to the King, he was always trying to act the part of a blustery noble, as if trying to convince himself that he wasn't barely any more important than the Unseen he was forced to supervise. As usual, he imperiously looked above us instead of at us, addressing the far wall when he spoke in his loud, flat voice.

“In addition to the daily procedures, the King wishes the westernmost sitting room to be spotless, and prepared for company. He also wishes the western garden to be checked and cleared of any refuse, and the fountain basin to be scrubbed. This must be done by noon.”

He turned on his heel with a sharp click of his slick-shined boot and walked away. We stood stock still until the sound of his staccato footsteps faded away.

“Wooooo!” Rowa squeaked. She took off toward the garden. Any chance to be outside. That left the sitting room for me.

I set to work dusting, moving the settees into a cozy semi circle for conversation, and setting out drinks on the table in front of the settees. I saved my least favorite part for last: cleaning the floor. I was nearly done, on my knees with a cloth and bucket, when the Prince and his cousin arrived on the scene, tracking street dust from their boots onto the still-wet floor. I stifled a groan and glared into my bucket. Wonderful. With an emphatic look toward the ceiling, I shuffled my knees after them to wipe the boot prints away.

“Did you dreamfare today?” Amri asked, leaning a hip against the arm of the rightmost settee.

Kazfel hand gone straight for the drinks and was pouring two glasses. “I did, just after morning study. I rode a horse.”

The Prince handed him a glass, but Amri did not drink, eying his cousin with suspicion. “And?”

“I rode around town, watching people.”

Amri's jaw dropped in an incredulous half-smile, half-sneer. “Seriously? That's it? You can do that any time, with any of the dozens of horses in your father's stables.” He began to pace, making even more tracks. “I would have taken the biggest horse I could find and jumped the highest fence I could find, just to see if I could do it. You could be doing anything, learning and honing yourself with no repercussions like training injuries, and here you are, wasting so much potential.”

As Amri paced, I surreptitiously crawled and wiped the floor in his wake with both ears perked at their topic of conversation. Kazfel watched his cousin with a neutral expression, unimpressed by the other's display of frustration. “You always say that. And I always ask: You're part of the family too, so where is _your_ shard? Then you always make a—yes, that face—and never answer.”

The black-eyed royal had come to a full stop, head jerking to fix his princely relative with a hard stare. I waited a few steps behind, continuing to look busy with wiping down the floor.

Kazfel pointed at the leather choker fastened around his cousin's neck. “You've been wearing that dreamcord since we were children. You must have a shard to put in it. Are you hiding something? Did you lose it?”

“You really want to know, Kaz?” Amri's narrowed eyes had a sharp light in them. He soundly plunked his glass back on the table before pivoting to stomp back the way he'd come. I scrambled out of the way just in time. The royal was completely unaware of me, continuing his furious pacing until he finally stopped in front of a window to glare at the sky. “Yes, I have one,” he said. “Fact is, I have—had—two.”

“ _Two_?” Kazfel's audible response perfectly mirrored the one in my head. I was so surprised at Amri's confession that I stopped what I was doing and almost looked up. Grimly, I returned to scrubbing and hoped no one had noticed the pause.

Amri nodded, then turned around to face his cousin again. “The first one didn't work. I went to sleep for a few minutes, but nothing happened. Couldn't even get that far again. The Keeper got special permission from the King to let me try another one.” He crossed both arms and leaned back on the windowsill. “Nothing. I was so mad I threw one across the garden. For all I know, it's still there. The other one is locked in my safe.”

“That's... a shame. Why didn't you say so before?”

“Because it doesn't matter. Nothing's going to change now that you know.”

“I could ask my father—”

“Don't. He's the one who ordered me not to tell, and I'm not going to get my hopes up again. It wouldn't be right, anyway. It happens more often than you'd think, and it's happened to other people you know. Ask your father about _that_.” As Amri said that last, he seemed to notice without looking that the buttons at the top of his shirt had come loose. He swiftly did them up in a perfunctory manner as he left the room.

Kazfel watched him go. He seemed to ponder what his cousin had said for a few moments, resting a thumb on his birthmark, before shaking his head. “ _That's_ likely to happen.” He returned his glass to the table and left, too.

“About as likely as I am to get this place clean by noon,” I huffed as soon as he was out of earshot. I went back around the room, scrubbing the floor, exchanging the dirty glasses for new ones, and wiping up the spills Amri had made when he slammed his glass down.

Later, I heard voices approaching and realized I'd been kneeling to pick up my wash bucket for some time, gone into my mind's eye to remember the cool evening breeze, the comforting touch of a friendly hand, and kind eyes looking back at mine with natural, familiar ease. I understood Amri's vexation, then. Waiting on a life-long promise that he would have wings, only to learn when they finally sprouted that he would never be able to fly with them.

I hurried through my afternoon and evening work to get finished early. Just to look at my treasure, maybe daydream a little... and to practice my leather working skills.

Dangling from my fingers was a newly-braided dreamcord made from Rowa's leather bits. I left a space right in the center of it that should fit my shard. After fastening the cord around my neck, I held the violet crystal with a kerchief and sat on the edge of my cot, casting a long look at the door. Then I laid down and carefully put the dreamshard into place, its cool surface pressing against my skin.

I knew it was stupid.

I'd always been fine. I was fine with my life.

I had food. I had shelter. Once in a long while, I even had a bit of actual, if fleeting, happiness.

But meeting Loye and her parents, interacting with Lenne, being treated as if I _mattered_ , reminded me just how lonely I really was.

As the room faded away into blackness, I heard a shrill voice echoing in my mind—the eerie sounds of my own cries on the day that I was taken from my mother.


	4. A Real Smile

My arrival into the dream world was less peaceful than it'd been last time. I could feel my body being shaken before sound and sight slowly bled back into my senses. It was Calden, Ana's father, who was doing the shaking to wake me, his face uncomfortably close to mine as he did it. “I'm awake,” I blurted as soon as I was able. “What happened?”

Blessedly, he drew away, but the furrow of his brow betrayed his continued worry. “You were... No. I should be the one asking that.” Calden stood up and offered his hand to help me rise. “Ana, what did you tell me earlier this morning? When I asked you to go with your mother to the market?”

I let him lift me, but immediately looked away with the excuse of straightening my skirts. “Of course I will, Father.”

“I would have loved to hear that.” His voice was wistful. “I can't remember the last time you didn't argue.”

“I have other plans?”

“You always do. But that's not what you said.”

It felt like he wasn't going to let it go until I gave the right answer. I had a feeling that Anasora was not exactly the sweetest drop of honey. Hiding my mouth behind my hand and keeping my gaze averted, I took a risk and a cue from one of my favorite princess-tales. “Shove it, old man?”

He sighed. “Essentially, but the words you used weren't nearly as polite.”

The man was quiet for a few moments, during which I took a quick survey of our surroundings. We were probably in Ana's house, in a sitting room with green walls and a piano. I was beside a bay window, where a half-complete crochet design on its frame had been discarded, or perhaps dropped as I came in.

“We all knew this would happen again,” said Calden. “We've been preparing for it.”

Now that he mentioned it, looking back with hindsight, the family _had_ seemed disproportionately calm and suspiciously well-informed at the revelation of Anasora's memory loss. “Does this happen often?”

“You're not the first in the family to suffer the mind sickness.”

“Sickness?”

He held out his hand in a silencing motion. “Stop with the questions, Ana. It will only draw attention.”

“But how will I—”

“We're going to teach you. Your mother, sister and I. We'll teach you how to behave like a lady of your station. You need to seem yourself, as much as possible.”

I won't deny it—my heart leapt. My own, personal lessons on how to act like nobility. I guess a part of me had always dreamed of enjoying the grandeur and luxury I saw every day all around me, just out of reach. Rowa and Amri weren't the only ones disgusted with the Big Prince, now. Kazfel already had more than anyone else in the kingdom, he could be and do _anything_ in the dream world, and he wasted his daily dreams on casual rides through town?

I would—

—I _could_!

This was _my_ dream!

“I'm ready!” I cried, feeling a flush of victory spread across my face.

“Good.” Calden called for Loye, and when the girl appeared in the doorway, he directed her to the piano. She was nonplussed at first, looking at us both with wide eyes, but then she hurried to sit down at the keys. Her fingers began to tap out a slow, simple melody, and Ana's father held out his hand to me. “We'll start slowly. Just follow my steps.” He seemed to enfold me into his arms, gently adjusting my back and shoulders into a certain posture. That instinctive twinge of fear made me flinch until I realized what was happening. He was going to teach me to _dance_.

When we were poised to begin, he slowly stepped back, drawing me with him. I was surprised when my feet moved, at finding it wasn't as difficult to keep up as I'd imagined from all those times I'd watched the royals do it. We turned a bit with each step, as if dancing along the edges of a square.

“I remember how excited you were to learn dance,” Calden said. “You had such a fancy for Henor's son back then and hoped you'd get to dance with him at the next summer's fete.”

“Did I?”

“No.” He snorted with irritation at the memory. “He walked right past you and danced with Erynelle instead. You were so angry that you refused to dance at all that night.”

“It sounds like something I'd do.”

“Yes. And I was even angrier—no, don't lean forward, keep your back straight—angrier than you. That was my daughter he rejected. Such effort to impress him, and he couldn't even be bothered to notice!”

Calden's steps had become much faster as he recalled the upsetting events of that night. I felt as if I was starting to scurry in order to keep up. “I hope you hit him,” I said, my voice sounding as uncertain as my feet felt.

He laughed, a little sadly. “I certainly wanted to, and so did you. But it hardly would have helped. I took you home. You cried most of the way.” He seemed to realize that he was moving too fast, and slowed down a bit. Loye subtly adjusted the pace of the music to match. Calden gave her a nod of approval, then turned his attention back to me. “That night, we stayed up late, dancing as though our lives depended on it. We danced again the next day. And the next. I trained you as a hardened general drills his troops, a harsh taskmaster indeed, but you relished it like no other work you'd ever set yourself to.”

“And then...?”

“And then, at the next summer's fete... you danced with someone _else_.” My father grasped my waist and laughed, lifting me off the ground and gently spinning in a circle. “And you were perfect. A graceful doe, spinning and leaping upon the marble parquet as if you weighed less than the air itself.” His grin was both proud and conspiratorial as he set me down and stood still for a moment, lifting a hand in a graceful, feminine movement that I recognized as a mimicry of his memory. “A redder shade of shame was never before seen on any man's face until you dangled your hand above his when he offered to dance afterward—then yanked it away!”

I burst out laughing as he dramatically flung his hand aside. “I doubt anyone besides you was good enough to dance with me, anyway!”

“It wasn't me that you danced with.”

“Oh? Who was it?”

Calden's grin faded. His eyes were sad for a moment as they searched mine, but then a warm smile crossed his face. “Come with me, Ana.”

We moved to another room that looked like a study or library. There, he took a book off of the desk and handed it to me. “What's this?” I asked.

“It's a journal. I want you to write down everything you do during these episodes. That way, you'll remember. You'll remember that you danced with your father today, and that you smiled. A real smile, not a sneer.” He gave me a pen, gently squeezing my hand during the transfer.

I gave the pen a vacant look. “I don't know how.”

“Just write whatever you want to remember.”

“I mean, I can't write. At all.”

“You... can't write?” He frowned, then pulled up another chair and sat down beside me. “Then I guess I'll have to teach you that, too.”

We sat together while I pondered what to put down. In the end, I decided to start with my first visit, leaving details that I definitely wanted to remember. And I wanted to remember _everything_.

Calden began by writing for me, spelling and then sounding out each word. By the end of our session, he was alternately guiding my hand and letting me write on my own in large, lopsided letters and lines that trailed halfway down the page at times.

Once we had completed my first journal entry, Calden stood up and stretched. “I'm parched. How about something to drink, Ana?”

I nodded gratefully. We must have been writing for at least an hour. Maybe two, judging by the heaviness in my eyes. As Anasora's father left the room, I closed the book with a yawn. I was so tired from the dancing and writing and my mind so full of good things that I folded my arms over the journal and laid my head on them, thinking nothing of resting my eyes for just a moment.

But when I opened them... I was alone again.


	5. A Little Conundrum

I was restless all morning. I couldn't stop thinking about my dreams. Even the lure of Kazfel's wardrobe didn't move me, for once. I let Rowa take care of the breakfast routines without a fight, and spent that time in my room, dancing to the music in my head.

When Rowa returned to her room later, she slammed the door. Hard.

“What's got you so upset?”

“They're different today,” she whined.

“Different? Who's different?”

“The _princes_.”

“Oh?” I couldn't help the scornful sound of that single syllable. “So Kazfel smiled? Did his face crack? What about Amri? Did your dream come true and he gazed right into your eyes?”

“No, stupid!” Her fist, or foot, struck the wall in tandem with the outburst. “They just felt funny. Like their minds were both somewhere else than usual. You know, another king visited yesterday. That's why Bental wanted the sitting room and garden ready.”

“So it probably has something to do with that.”

“It was only from behind, but I saw a lady with a white dog in his entourage.” She paused meaningfully, and I could practically smell the melodrama. An amateur attempt at suspense. “I'll bet you _anything_ she's his daughter, and she's after Kazfel.”

I merely shrugged, even though a faint thrill ran through me at the thought of seeing a real princess. Perhaps I would be so lucky next time, if there was a next time. “That's what kings do. They marry their spawn off to each other. It's all politics.” It was my turn to make a pointed pause. “We. Don't. Care. About. Politics.”

Her only response was to punch the wall again.

When I next dreamed again, I woke up in Ana's house, at a table in her room. It was strewn with fabrics and sewing tools. I let out a childish giggle of glee as I ran my hands over the meticulously-cut shapes, some partially sewn together, laid out to form the shape of a dress.

The sea green fabric she'd been working with was cool, light and crinkly, layered against lace. Very different from the cotton-lined silk she... _I_ was wearing. I wondered what occasion the new dress was being made for as I took a closer look, marveling at the tiny, well-concealed stitches of its seams.

When my curiosity was satisfied, I looked out into the corridor. “Loye? Father? Mother?” Finding no one else in the house, I went outside. A quick trot of the property led me to believe that Ana had been refusing a family outing. I supposed it would hardly be out of character for her to go on an outing of her own in the meantime.

I set off toward town, easily remembering the simple route into the more populated areas of Itania. Surprisingly, I managed to navigate the streets well enough to find Calden's stall, but no one was there. In fact, there were very few people in the market at that late hour. Again, it seemed most of them recognized me, but were reluctant to engage. I got a wave out of one hawker, but got the feeling it was mostly because he hoped I'd come and buy something. Class laws were strict in the dream world too, it seemed. Or was it Anasora's “sparkling personality” again?

My fancy noble's shoes were starting to feel painfully tight, anyway, so I decided to head back to Ana's home. Just as I was about to pass through the gate of the marketplace, I tripped on a loose cobblestone, fell, and bloodied my knee.

“Don't move, Miz Anasora!” The sociable hawker called out. “I'll fetch the physician.”

He took off. Another market-goer handed me a kerchief to dab the blood, but otherwise gave me plenty of space. The rest pretended to mind their own business while making regular side-eyes in my direction. It didn't matter anyway. I was much more bothered by the fact that I had ruined yet another of Ana's lovely dresses. The ground-in dirt and blood smears would be next to impossible to get out. Ignoring what the hawker'd said about staying still, I got up and hobbled back to Calden's stand to lean on the counter and nurse my wound. It was nothing compared to the tongue-biting pinches, splinters and bruises I got almost daily while doing chores. A mere tickle after enjoying the sensation of cracking my skull on a fireplace while scraping out the ashes, or falling off of a stool while dusting the shelves, or—

My silk-encased elbow slipped off the counter.

Coincidentally, that happened at the same moment that the physician came into view, along with another. Also coincidentally, that other happened to be Lenne.

He laughed; a brilliant sound, smooth as the silk I wore.

The physician elbowed him in a casual sort of reflex that suggested he did it often. “That's enough.”

The younger man grinned, even though it looked like it'd hurt. “Sure, Da.”

His father held him with a pointed look for a few moments before turning back to me. “Now then, Ana. Looks like a good scrape you have there.”

“It's nothing.”

“Perhaps. I'll clean it up for you, dear.” He knelt beside me, took a clean cloth and a bottle of some liquid from his bag, and began to wash my sore knee while Lenne looked on. “It will be fine. Nothing serious.”

“As if I didn't just say that a second ago.” The words slipped out. While I blushed and ducked my head in shame, Lenne stifled another laugh.

His father was a little less amused. “It's getting late, Anasora. Does your father know where you are?”

“I'm sure he does.”

The physician gave me a long, searching look. “Lenne, please walk the young lady home,” he finally said.

“Sure, Da.”

His father packed up his bag, suddenly looking very preoccupied. He left without another word.

“Up you go,” said Lenne. He bent, took my wrist, and hauled me to my feet. “Now, _young lady_ , let's get you home.” His voice was a little deeper and words spoken slower than usual in playful mimicry of his father. As he did when I first met him, Lenne smiled and threaded his arm through mine. Ignoring the continuing stares of the nearby townsfolk, we began the walk back to Ana's house.

When we came to a crossroads, my escort stopped short. “Hm? Which way?” He held a thumb and finger to his chin, furrowed his brow, and pursed his lips in an exaggerated thinking pose. “Do _you_ know?”

My smile wavered in the realm of lukewarm, for I was torn between amusement at his antics and irritation that he might really be thinking I was some sort of imbecile. “Of course I know.”

“Are you sure? Last time we met, you were pretty lost.”

My reserve of mettle was quickly running dry under the pressure of his impish, knowing grin, and I turned aside, trying to hide behind my hair. “I was not! Father just moved his stand without telling me.”

Lenne's eyes crinkled. “Father _also_ visited the physician without telling you, it seems. I'm no child anymore, but I can still fit in every closet in my house just fine. I might as well have been sitting at the table with them yesterday while they discussed your recent amnesic episodes.” His hand briefly touched my shoulder as he circled me and leaned in close to observe, an overblown look of muse crossing his features again. “I'm not into medicine like my old man, but I do like a good mystery. Some of their theories were just _enthralling_.”

Taking another cue from the capable heroines in my favorite stories, I tried to toss my hair dismissively. “Oh? What sort of theories?” It was frighteningly difficult to not toss the contents of my stomach, too.

He ceased the circling and crossed his arms, fixing me with a direct stare. “Tell me, Anasora: Are you merely acting, like an attention-seeking child? Or are you some faerie changeling who's replaced the Ana we all know and love?”

“Both.” My answer was an effort at being purposely coy, but strangely enough, it felt a lot like the truth.

Lenne's eyebrow rose in a skeptical, yet delighted arch. “That's a little less detail than I was hoping for.”

It was working. A smirk tugged at the corner of my lips, and my tone actually became _saucy_ , if only just long enough to shoot back, “You said you like mysteries. Why don't you try and solve this one yourself?”

That got me a wicked grin. “Is that a challenge? Just you wait, little fae. I'll solve your little conundrum, given time.”

Too late, I realized that my smile had become very full and my gaze intensely focused on those wholly exasperating, mesmerizing copper eyes. I could almost hear the snap of leather as I jerked away, pointing a finger in the direction I knew Anasora's home was. “I can find my way from here,” I said, painstakingly forming the words around the increasingly sick feeling in my stomach.

For the first time, I wished the dream would end early. But it didn't.

“You're very odd, you know that?” said Lenne. His tone was still infuriatingly unperturbed, and curious. But I was done fielding questions asked by a person who suddenly felt far too real for a fantasy world. Wringing Anasora's red hair with both hands, I started to walk home, not concerning myself with whether or not the man decided to follow.

The welcome sight of Ana's house couldn't come soon enough for me. I was terribly glad when Loye's face appeared in one of the windows, then she ran to meet me in the entry. She waved politely to Lenne, I assumed, before ushering me inside and closing the door. I couldn't bring myself to look back and find out.

With a loud exhale, Loye braced her back against the door and seemed to melt, sagging nearly to her knees. “That was Lenne,” she breathed, eyes wide with awe as she stared at me. “What were you doing with _him_?”

“I didn't really have a choice.” Ana's sister listened with rapt attention as I explained what had happened in the market and showed her the stains on my dress. “He knows about my mind sickness. More than I do, I think.”

“How did he find out?”

“He hid in a closet.”

“A _closet_?”

“A closet. He listened in when our fathers were discussing it.”

Loye covered her mouth, but her eyes and faint blush betrayed the delighted smile she was trying to hide. “What sort of man hides in a closet like a boy who's only had a half-dozen summers? He's just bizarre.”

“Agreed. I'll definitely write that down in the memory journal.”

“Oh yes, definitely!” The girl's face lit up. “That journal was the best idea Da ever had. It's working!”

“It is?”

Instead of answering me, Loye took my hand and led me to the study. The journal was there, on the desk where I'd left it before. She opened it and triumphantly pointed at a variety of little doodles and markings down the sides of the pages Calden and I had written on. In particular, there was a recurring female figure that I took to be a caricature of Ana herself. Most of the doodles seemed unrelated to the topics I'd written about, such as the one where the Ana-figure was holding a misshapen blob that I could only guess might be a cat. The one that loomed next to what I was sure was my memory of dancing with Calden seemed particularly menacing, though, its frown and thicker, darker lines suggesting she was pressing hard on the pen when she drew it. Two words were written beside it in an inversely flowery, well-practiced script that looked a thousand times nicer than my scribbles.

“It doesn't look like I thought much of this part,” I said, and pointed at the fancy-looking words. “What does this say?”

“It says, 'Not likely.'” She pursed her lips. “But that kind of reaction means it had an impact. It's as good a start as we could've hoped for.”

Idly tracing the words on the page with a finger, I pictured Anasora reading about my memories, her pretty face scrunching angrily as she scrawled the similarly scowling caricature of herself. What was going on in her private thoughts? Would the journal have any effect beyond annoying her? This was really starting to feel like a puzzle. A story about a family, and a whole world, with many mysteries to be solved.

Unbidden, my thoughts went back to Lenne. If he solved my mystery, what would happen? Would I lose my ability to use the dreamshard, like Amri?

If I could never see Loye and her family again...

“Da said you'd need help writing things down if you had another episode,” she said, interrupting my ruminating with a soft, understanding smile. “Want to start on it now?”

Grateful for the distraction, I nodded. Even as I relished recounting the full details of my encounter with Lenne to Ana's little sister, I resolved that there was only room for one mystery-solver in this world, and that mystery-solver was _me._


	6. A Garden-Variety Visitor

Several days of uneventful routine passed without another dreamfaring session to Itania, though I thought about it constantly. I wore my dreamcord every day when I went to my room for the evening, but never went so far as to insert the shard. Instead, I moved a loose floorboard in the corner and buried the gem in the dirt underneath. Even Rowa wouldn't find it there if she ever decided to ransack my room.

If I couldn't even look Lenne in the eye without collapsing internally, how could I ever expect to outwit, or even just mislead him enough to protect my secret? Perhaps it wouldn't matter in the end, but I wasn't willing to risk it. There was too much that I wanted to learn, try, and do in the dream world. So I stayed away from said dream world, doing exactly the opposite of what I wanted. Completely logical.

After stashing the dreamshard, my midmorning duties consisted mostly of cleaning that sitting room again, and thankfully this time I was uninterrupted by errant princelings and company. I even got a few minutes outside in the garden, where I picked all the leaves and other debris out of the fountain. Afterward, I stood on my toes on the rim and could just barely see the top of the Dream Stone over top of the tall hedges. It seemed to wink at me in the sunlight, taunting with twinkles of rich color like a cheeky bird on the sill of a closed window, wagging its tail feathers at the resentful cat on the other side.

When I heard the click of hooves and the rattle of a carriage approaching, I fled from the garden and skittered along the side of the manor house to watch the arrival. It sounded like a large group of horses—a royal entourage?

Six of the reddest bay horses I'd ever seen trotted smartly about the courtyard, lifting their black legs high. They drew behind them a sleek carriage with rose red trim and metal wheels. Banners flew from the roof of the carriage, each one red with a black mark in the center that resembled a flying eagle. A procession of a dozen mounted guards followed after two by two, their uniforms and tack bearing insignias that matched the banners.

The King himself had come out to meet the new arrivals, taking long, slow steps that caused his floor-length coat to billow elegantly in his wake. His ebony hair fell in brow-length waves that nearly obscured the thin circlet that marked his authority, but his regal bearing, back as severely upright and unmoving as an ages-old oak, and the jut of his sharp chin, ever pointing at his subjects like the tip of a sword, could not be so easily missed. He held himself with such grace and surety that without a close look one might never see the wrinkles and the true depth of his sunken cheeks and realize just how old he was—somewhere in his eighties. He was surrounded by a small entourage: The Arbiter, a short, bookish-looking man; Bental, that persistent impostor of nobility; Kazfel, looking like a budget imitation of his father; and Amri, who seemed unusually pale and tight-lipped.

Amri hung back as the carriage came to stop, pushing his sleeves up to his elbows and then almost immediately plucking them back down again. He did it a second time and would have done it a third had the King not turned his head just enough to fix a single eye on the young man. Amri saw and stiffened, clasping his hands at his sides.

The nearest door of the carriage opened and out stepped another king. He was broader of shoulder, darker-skinned and much younger than the elderly king of Redora, and greeted the same with a shallow but sincere bow. He then turned to assist the next to exit the carriage, taking hold of the slender hand that appeared with tender, fatherly care.

The figure he drew out from the carriage was beautiful. Her skin was a warm, satiny caramel brown and her eyes striking green. Her hair was long and full, a few shades darker than her skin, wrapped with bright silks into a ponytail that was draped over one shoulder. She wore a crisp white dress with long sleeves and a big, decorative cowl in colorful prints that matched her hair silks. In the crook of her arm was a small, fluffy white dog that seemed as happy as she was to be there. The woman's smile, in contrast to the dog's open-mouthed grin, was wide and comfortable. Even from the side of the house, I could tell it had fully reached her eyes.

No wonder the royals had been a little off the morning after her first visit. My hand clutched at my chest, admittedly a little dramatically. I'd seen princesses before, but never one like _this_. She was like something out of a storybook. Or a dream. I grabbed a hunk of my own hair and looked at it, just to make sure it wasn't red. Nope, black as usual.

The King greeted the princess with a gentle clasp of their hands, then he gave her over to Kazfel. I frowned in disgust when the Prince didn't return her smile. Didn't even attempt to fake one. He just looked at her with his dead, cold eyes, as if she was any old ho-hum garden-variety visitor, then handed her off to Amri. His cousin, at least, had the decency to smile, bob his head, and welcome her to Redora.

The princess seemed to take it all in stride, as far as I could tell. She was still smiling when she turned back to her father, taking his hand as the small crowd began to make their way into the manor house.

I dashed back to the garden door and went inside. Rowa was on her way through the corridor, moving cautiously with a gaze like two round, royal-hunting moons. Grabbing her wrist and yanking her along, I pressed a finger to my lips to hopefully keep her quiet. At the last turn, I peered around the corner to make sure the party had already gone through. Faint voices came from the sitting room, so we crept closer to the door to listen in, two naughty little children spying on their masters.

Rowa chanced a peek, and when she looked back, her eyes were shining with excitement. We nodded enthusiastically at each other, needing no words to know exactly what we were agreeing on.

They were still in the midst of banal niceties, talking in particular about how pleasant Redora was that time of year. Every visitor the King hosted said the same old, tired thing without fail. Rowa mimed putting her finger down her throat. When were they going to talk about _her_?

“That warm breeze in your city is so pleasant, Isenfel. Nothing like the winds back home,” the visiting king said. “Treeless plains do not offer much of a shield from them.”

“Fortuitous for you that the soil is more than rich enough to make up for the inconvenience.”

“True. And it isn't much of an inconvenience, really. We build our houses strong and grow our hedges tall.”

 _Where? What city? What country? Give us the goods!_ They were so boring that I wanted to yell at them to hurry up and get on with it.

“I've been thinking, Gerath…”

“About what, my friend?”

“Perhaps we might talk about building other houses, of a less residential kind?”

“We might. There is a matchless parcel that might be built on in Torandel... by the right architect, that is.”

There was a long pause.

“You may leave,” the King said to someone. There was a faint sneer in the otherwise cool dismissal.

Rowa and I scrambled back to the end of the corridor, ducking around the corner to watch with perverse glee at the thought of Bental being ousted from a royal get-together. He was the only one there who'd get the lowly servant's treatment.

When Amri stepped into the corridor instead, Rowa looked at me with a hanging jaw and deeply furrowed brow. All I could do was close my own open mouth before something flew into it.

The Prince's cousin stood near the door, shifting his feet and alternately looking up and down the corridor and back toward the sitting room, his eyes darting about as if he were lost. We retreated again when he finally decided to come our way. When he passed the room we'd slipped into, we put down the end table we were pretending to move and went back to stare some more as he walked away, just to make sure we weren't imagining it.

“...Why?” came the squeak she'd been barely holding in.

“I don't know.”

“Maybe he offended someone?”

“But he wasn't even talking.”

We froze in place as a guard suddenly walked by. Then another. They were _patrolling_. Rowa and I didn't stick around, hurrying off to finish our chores without so much as another word.

There was enough to do to keep me busy until it was almost nightfall, even without the usual discreet break or two. _No one_ slacked off when patrols were active.

Rounds were even made to the laundry room, where I scrubbed royal robes like my life depended on it. I hung the last batch on the drying rack and then gathered the clothes that were already cleaned and dried into a large, unwieldy basket. Balancing it on my hip was not an easy task; my arm was barely long enough to reach the far handle.

The stairs were even worse. I hauled myself one-handed by the railing, struggling to keep balance long enough to let go and grab it again for the next step. Halfway to the top, I finally gave up and dragged the basket, crab-walking sideways. I could have collapsed into blissful sleep right there on the floor by the time I reached my destination, but the job had to be completed before that sleep could be had.

I took a moment to catch my breath, wiping the sweat from my brow. Not enough. With a jerk on the bow of my severely-tight wrap, I released my hair from its fetters and fluffed it out, then retied it in a loose tail at the nape of my neck.

Amri was in the room when I entered with the basket on my hip, still awake and fully dressed, laying on the bed with shoulders propped up against the headboard and ankles resting one atop the other. He was gazing intently into a white kerchief draped over his hand, close enough to his face that his black eyes appeared slightly crossed.

Only days ago, I would have smirked at his stupid expression and later had a great laugh telling Rowa all about it. Instead, I glanced across the room to his safe, which was open. A strip of deep purple felt hung over the lip of the top shelf, spilling from a small cherrywood jewelry box. My hunch proved correct when I crossed the room to the wardrobe with the strangest urge to tiptoe, feeling conscious of my own presence. From there, I was able to spy a flash of pink and violet in the royal's hand.

Turning my back to the bed, I set to work shaking out and hanging the clean clothes. It wasn't until I heard the rustle of movement that I snuck further glances over my shoulder.

He'd pulled one knee up and sat fully upright, still focused on the dreamshard in his palm. He slowly lifted a finger to touch the shard briefly. Another touch, longer this time. He picked it up between his thumb and finger, bringing it almost right up to his nose to look at it with heavy eyes. Absolutely nothing happened. He pressed it to his lip for a moment, chin resting on the heel of his hand, closed his eyes, then sighed and dropped the shard onto the bed where I could see it clearly. Squeezing the kerchief into a wad in his fist, he laid on his side facing away from the purple gem.

I continued my task, trying to be as quiet as possible while straining to hear the royal's breathing. When I was certain he'd fallen asleep, I left my basket and went to kneel at the edge of the bed to look at his dreamshard. In vain, I searched for something out of the ordinary, going so far as to pick it up with my apron to scan closely for a crack or other flaw. Carefully, I turned it, awkwardly manipulating the crystal through the thick fabric. Surely there must be _something_ , I thought, just as Amri inhaled sharply.

I jerked away, my fingers spasmodically tightening around the shard pinched in my apron. The crystal flew up. My reflexes responded and I safely snatched the dreamshard. With my bare hand.

_No!_

My heart pounded in my ears as my body involuntarily sagged over the edge of Amri's bed, strength draining from me as quickly as lifeblood from a fatal wound. The crystal seemed to shine in my paralyzed hand, its dancing colors filling my vision and then fading into darkness.

_No no no no NO!_

Shivering with frigid fear, I looked up. As the black void closed in, I couldn't tear my eyes away from the back of the sleeping man.


	7. Time to Wake Up

I came to by the pond near town, an open book laying face down on my chest. It fell into the grass when I sat up and clutched my head in my hands, fingers tangling into my hair until it hurt.

Whether it was minutes or hours later that I finally got up, my face was hot and wet and my eyes were burning. I was glad that I couldn't see what was happening in the real world. The thought of it was terrifying. The King himself could be standing over me, or my body might already be on the wagon on the way to—

I wilted like a sun-burnt flower, but couldn't shed another tear.

How could I have been so stupid?

What was I thinking?

Did I really expect that there was anything I could do if I _had_ found something wrong with that shard? _Why_ did I even…?

As if an arrow was shot through my mind, I suddenly thought of Ana's family. I wanted to run to them. They would make me smile and maybe, for a few minutes, forget that my life would be over when I woke up. So I ran, but my feet froze after just a couple of strides. My skirt swished forward from the sudden stop, then slowly fell still about my ankles.

If I would never dreamfare again, I didn't want to remember them that way. I didn't want to remember bursting into that house, scaring Loye, Calden and Lera, crying like a hysterical child. I couldn't go there. I wouldn't. But just sitting and waiting for my doom… that would be unbearable. I had to wake up, quickly.

Keeping a careful eye out for the family, I went into town with the express purpose of finding someone else. Ignoring the odd looks and concerns about my obviously disheveled appearance, I questioned people and followed their directions until I found the right house.

There was no shame in the firm, loud raps I made with the heavy door knocker. I was ready to talk all about this “little conundrum” of mine. I imagined that skinny foxface grinning and laughing at the absurdity of it all, and then, as I gave the final detail as to my true identity, the dream world shattering around me and falling away like the fragments of a broken mirror.

But when Lenne opened the door, he wasn't grinning.

He held the door only just wide enough for half of his face to show, and he stood back in the relative darkness of the house. The one eye I could see was narrowed. His mouth was flatly unsmiling. “What do you want?”

“I… Lenne?”

“I'm not going to ask again.”

I blinked and looked a second time.

Lenne's nose wrinkled and his lip curled into a sneer. “What is the matter with you? Go home, Anasora.”

“But I need your help—”

He closed the door.

He closed it in my face.

I sat on the stoop and stared deep into the ground at nothing, unable to silence the screaming in my head.

Some time later, I was aimlessly wandering, not noticing or caring that the sky had gotten dark. I heard a voice, but it was distant and indistinct, as if I were underwater. It came again, a little louder. I ignored it, but the voice was persistent, pushing and prodding at me until I finally came to the surface.

“ _Ana_!”

It was Lera. She stood across the street from me, tears in her eyes and teeth bared in a grimace of fear. “I was so scared! Why did you run off like that? Why didn’t you come home?”

My heart shattered into pieces. I’d thought there were no tears left in me, but her anguished cries made them spill all over again.

“Ana, I'm here.” She held out her arms.

In one moment, the world was spinning out of control, and in the next, I was wrapped in the arms of my mother, her body a shield about me, a refuge that hid a frightened little girl from the terrors all around. Her voice was soft, murmuring gentle reassurances and words of tender love. Words that I had only ever heard spoken to others. She said them to _me_. I closed my eyes and pressed in, forgetting, for a few precious moments, what awaited me when this dream came to an end.

Her warm embrace was still with me when I woke. I clung to that solace with all of my being, afraid to open my eyes and accept my fate. As my senses fully returned, there was an increasing pressure, then pain, in my back and shoulders. I realized I was partially upright, my arms stretched out in front of me on a cushioned surface. I was—

I was still collapsed over the side of the bed.

I couldn't hold in the gasp as my eyes shot open and I fell back onto my rear end in the same instant. My hand slapped over my mouth too late, but a panicked glance showed that, by some miracle, I had been spared.

Bathed in dim, gray moonlight, Amri was still asleep, his fine dayclothes pathetically wrinkled from the usual tossing and turning. He'd rolled onto his back at some point during the night, dark hair tousled and lips fallen slightly open. In the poignant silence of the wee hours, his slow, rhythmic breathing was easy to hear. No routines were established for putting the royals to bed, but something felt decidedly right about fetching a spare blanket from the linen drawer to spread it over his sleeping form. A thank-you, perhaps, for graciously, if unknowingly, letting me live. Something about the idea stirred afresh the memory of Lera's hug. Thinking of her made me smile as I returned to the side of the bed with the blanket and began to unfold it.

As I bent and draped the blanket, it swept Amri's dreamshard off the bed and onto the floor with a clatter that might as well have been thunder in the nightly quiet. I dropped to the ground as Amri jerked awake, flattening myself to the wooden tiles. The hanging edge of the bedcovers shifted and sagged down in front of my face as he threw them back and sat up, his feet coming down from above. I yanked my hand aside just in time to avoid being stepped on, tense enough that my fingertips dug painfully into the floor where they touched.

My teeth were clenched so hard in a grimace of flat-out terror that I couldn't even close my eyes. I had to watch every agonizing second of Amri standing and towering over me, peering blindly out into the dark room, before his pale face suddenly screwed up with ominous realization.

Instead of looking down, he sneezed.

My soul felt like it had completely left my body when he turned aside and circled around to the other side of the room, checking his wardrobe and then the windows before laying down again on the far side of the bed. I was perfectly happy to remain right where I was, a girl-shaped puddle of melted panic and regrets, until he was fully asleep again. Even then, I waited a while longer, unwilling to waste this second chance by acting too soon.

I felt weak when I finally stood up, pausing on my knees to pick up the dreamshard in the wrinkled apron I'd crushed underneath me. Looking at the tiny thing I'd nearly lost everything for, just a little purple jewel, the sheer stupidity of my situation made me want to laugh out loud. I found myself thinking about Ana's mother again, a smile returning to my face.

I was still smiling when I carefully replaced the dreamshard back where Amri had dropped it, and when I picked up my laundry basket and left the room, when I laid my head on my own pillow, and when I finally drifted off to sleep.


	8. Getting the Hang of This

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [****** Note 2/15/21: I still have a backlog of at least 12 chapters left, but due to major revisions requested by my betas that are coming to what's already been posted, I'm putting this on hiatus. When ready to resume updates, I will be posting this work to Royal Road under the username LeonaM and will update here with a link. I was planning to crosspost, but I believe I will be making a full move now. Thanks for the views so far! :) ******]

The days that followed were blessedly quiet, allowing me time to digest a chaotic mess of memories and emotions. Part of me wanted to believe that whole day had been some sort of fever dream, but Rowa couldn't shut up about the princess from Torandel, babbling on and on about her even when we were working in more populated areas of the manor. She got herself a good whipping for it, too.

That was because few of the other scrubs were as... _discreetly_ pragmatic as we two had learned to be. Most kept their noses silently to the grindstone, preferring to live a monotonous existence as unmolested ghosts, but a couple of them were so hatefully desperate for something more that they actively sought rewards for ratting others out. I noticed the yellow pebble on the floor outside of Rowa's room when she got hit. A “rat rock,” from one of the bowls in the kitchen. Yellow for talking, red for stealing, and blue for leaving the manor grounds, among others. A color for every forbidden act. I kicked Rowa's pebble into a corner, but found out later that Bental had already seen it.

That evening, I felt like a monster when I realized I'd slipped into yet another daydream about my dream family with that witless smile plastered on my face while the poor girl was moping about her misfortune on the other side of the wall. The daydreaming was happening a lot lately, which was a problem while I was working, but I had a fix for it. All I had to do was think about Lenne, and the idiotic smile went away fast.

He'd looked at me as if I was an enemy… or as if he didn't know me. But he'd used Anasora's name. He _did_ know me… or, rather, her. So what had changed? The only thing I could think of was that I had used Amri's shard, and not my own. Did each shard create a different version of a person’s dream?

“I didn't do anything wrong,” Rowa sulked through the wall.

“You never do,” I readily agreed, unable to hold back a grin at the thought of the many rainbows' worth of rocks she'd been awarded over the summers.

“You're smirking, I can hear it! You're a royal pile of trash, Tabby.”

“Huh, that's the first time anyone's ever described me as 'royal.' Thanks, Row.”

“That wasn't a compliment! You're about as far from being royal as a horse's behind!”

As my neighbor continued her slanderous tirade, I knelt in the corner of my room and wedged the sharper end of a broken hardwood twig between the floorboards. A little pop, and up came one of the boards, revealing a patch of dirt. A bit of scraping around with the twig unearthed my dreamshard, twinkling merrily in the lamplight as soon as it appeared.

A strange thrill ran through me when I picked it up—both joyous, and dreadful. Stubbornly, I shoved the thoughts of that last away. The risks of an accidental dream with someone else's shard did not apply here, in the privacy of my own room, with my own shard. Tonight, I was going to see my family—I mean, _her_ family… and maybe someone else, too.

When I awoke in Itania, the first thing I did was hurry to find Lera and hug her. She was startled at first, but then she laughed and squeezed me tightly. “What's gotten into you, Ana?”

“Just feeling good, I guess,” I said.

Lera held me out at arm's length and smiled at me. “You're terrible at lying when you're having these episodes, and you actually want to hug your mother? I could get used to this—though I'd rather we not make a habit of doing so in the streets after dark. Let’s keep the sneaking out to a minimum from now on, shall we?” She gave me another squeeze for good measure.

I still had no idea why Ana had run away that day, but in a way I was glad that she did, or else Lera wouldn’t have been there when I needed her.

When Ana’s mother released me and stepped back, I saw behind her what she'd been working on when I came in. It was that crinkly green dress I'd seen in Anasora's room, hung about a cloth mannequin. Much work had been done on it since then, most of the pieces either stitched or pinned into place. Either Ana or Lera had done some embroidery on the sleeves as well, of wing- or wave-like shapes that originated at the ends of the lacy cuffs and stretched nearly to the elbows.

I couldn't help but ogle. Lera was quick to pick up on it. She briefly stepped away to her nearby worktable, selected her weapon of choice, and held it out to me—a tiny, white-threaded needle. “Would you like to help?”

“I'll mess it up,” I automatically said, but my longing eyes betrayed me. They were locked on that dress and wouldn't budge.

Ana's mother circled the mannequin, giving it a quick once-over, before lifting the dress off of it and gently laying it out on the worktable. She folded back two layers of skirts, the crinkly green and the white lace, revealing a darker green layer of linen that made the lace visibly stand out. “We added this layer later, so it's not completely sewn in yet. If you happen to mess up here, it'll be barely noticeable.” She waved me closer and gave a demonstration with the needle and thread, weaving them in and out of the innermost two layers with great care, yet much, much faster so than I could have done. After a minute or so, she tied the thread off in a neat little knot, snipped it close with a pair of tiny scissors, and handed the needle to me. “Go to it, Ana. You've always been a natural at this.”

I was stock-still with the needle in my hand for a moment, anxiously remembering all of the times I had already ruined Anasora's beautiful creations, before gleefully brandishing the little stick of metal and setting upon the green dress like a ravenous, but careful, beast.

I'd done my best, but there were still several places where Lera had to go back and re-stitch places where distinct wrinkles had been sewn right into the dark green layer. At the first _riiiiip_ of those stitches, I winced and wrung my hair. Any moment now, the chastising and punishment would come.

“Stop that,” Lera said, a chuckle in her tone. “It's fine. You've never—well, not _never_ done this before, but… How _awkward_ it is to talk like this!”

Her emphatic sigh brought a smile to my face. She sounded just like Loye.

“We're going to need more of this green. A yard should be enough. Maybe two, just to be safe.”

“I'll get it,” I said, surprising both of us. “I'd like to take Loye, if she's home.”

“Good! She's been chafing at the bit to get outside for more than just a walk in the garden. I'll get started on supper while you're gone.” Lera handed me some coins, then shooed me away to fetch Loye.

I found the freckled blonde in the stable, the place warm and filled with the sweet smell of freshly-forked hay inside. She stood in a narrow stall brushing down one of the horses, reaching up high to groom its pale gray back. I was just about to tap her when she scratched the horse on its shoulders and it responded by suddenly craning its neck toward her face, puckering out its lips and showing its teeth. With a cry of warning, I yanked her backwards to safety. The horse squealed and drew back onto its hind legs, thrashing out at us with the fore. I stared in horror as the massive animal threw an ugly tantrum over being thwarted, stomping all four feet and trying to spin, slamming its bulk repeatedly against the sides of the confining stall with startlingly loud thumps.

“I can't breathe,” Loye grunted.

With a string of nonsensical words that attempted to be apologies, I released the visehold I'd had about her shoulders.

She immediately went to the horse, using soothing words and a treat from her pocket to slowly calm it down. When it had quieted enough for her to pet it again, she turned to give me a pained look. “You scared him.”

“He was going to bite you.”

“No, he wasn't. He was only telling me that he was really enjoying the scratches.” She must have recognized the dumbfounded look on my face, for her eyes suddenly flickered with understanding. “Oh, I see. I guess you two still need an introduction. This is Symon. Your horse.”

 _Mine?_ This gigantic, snorting beast with hooves as big as a man's hands with fingers stretched to the breaking point? This massive behemoth with a face longer than my own torso? I'd always thought they were nice to look at from a distance, but I'd never been close enough to actually touch a horse, even on the rare occasions when I did enter the King's stables. The animals were so valuable that any work around them was the sole duty of dedicated stablehands.

“S-Symon. Good horsey. Big horsey. Very big.”

Symon flicked his ears at the sound of my abnormally high-pitched voice.

“Er, okay. You don't normally talk down to him like that.” Loye's mouth was pulled to one side in a lopsided grimace. “Anyway, here, try giving him a treat. Put it on your palm, keep your hand flat, he'll just pick it up nicely.”

She didn't give me much of a choice, gripping my wrist and dropping the little morsel into my hand, then guiding it out toward the horse. I scrunched my eyes shut as his wide-nostriled muzzle came unerringly toward my palm. There was no pain, but Symon's floppy wet lips practically enveloped my hand, leaving a smear of equine spittle behind.

“He's usually a lot more delicate than that,” Loye noted with a slight furrow in her brow. “Though, he _did_ just get really worked up.”

“Sorry. He won't scare me next time. I won't scare him, I mean.”

“It's okay. So, you were looking for me?”

“I was. Mother needs some fabric for the dress, and I thought maybe we could—”

Loye darted across the stable, lifted a saddle and blanket off of their rack, and shoved them into my chest. “Wait here, I'll get Clarina.” My guts began to shrivel as she went and brought a second horse, a brown with four white socks. Loye spread a blanket over her, and grabbed another saddle. “Just watch what I do, and do the same with Symon.”

My jaw hung slack as Ana's little sister casually slung the saddle over Clarina's blanketed back, reached under the animal's belly to the far side, and nonchalantly cinched and tightened the belt that held the saddle in place.

When it came time for me to follow suit, I was much more careful, lowering Symon's saddle as slowly and non-offensively as I possibly could. He shifted his weight as the leather touched down over the blanket. Thankfully, I managed to hold still instead of bolting and almost certainly scaring him again. He shifted a second time as I began to tighten the saddle belt about his girth, one of his rear hooves tilting forward as if preparing to spring into action. Another freeze, unmoving until his foot rested flat on the ground again, and then I continued. We played that odd cat and mouse game for what felt like an eternity before Loye finally announced that it was tight enough.

With many teeth clenches and a few near upsets, Loye guided me in the fine art of mounting a horse. When we had succeeded at last, I sat proudly astride my steed, and while I felt grand as could be… I looked about as regal as a sack of old vegetables.

Loye's mouth quivered and her cheeks puffed as she fought laughter at the sight of me. “Not to be crass, but 'suck it in' is really the best advice I can give you right now. I promise, you'll stay on longer.” She was trying hard, but I could still hear the faintest of chuckles in that. I sat up straighter and was pleased to find that I instantly felt more secure in the saddle, legs naturally gripping the leather with much less effort.

Satisfied, Loye pressed her horse into a walk. The animals must have been very accustomed to walking to town, for Symon fell into step behind Clarina almost immediately. We went through the basics of steering, and it turned out to be surprisingly easy. The only thing Symon did against my direction was to pause now and then to nibble grass or a fallen leaf. With him so well-behaved, I slowly relaxed until I could actually enjoy myself, looking around at the scenery and marveling at how far I could see from up there on his back.

In town, we stopped to tie the horses at Calden's stall. His eyes narrowed with some suspicion when Loye held Symon's bridle so that I could get down. “What are you girls up to?” he asked me as I clumsily dismounted.

“We're looking for some linen in dark sea green, for my new dress.”

“Try Dor's stand. He was the last to order a load of summer linens.”

“Thanks, Da,” Loye said brightly. She grabbed my arm and led me off, giving me no chance to complain about not knowing who Dor was. Calden watched us go with a faint frown on his face.

As soon as she was sure that I was keeping up, Ana's little sister let go of me. Her sweet smile disappeared for a few moments as she lifted her chin and lowered her eyelids in an uncharacteristically haughty expression.

“Like this, Ana,” she said. “You look like this when we're in public, usually. That's why people are looking at you funny. A few of Da's nosier regulars have been asking if you've fallen ill or had some sort of crisis. He'd much rather they didn't.”

“Oh.” I should have guessed that the lost and curious looks about my surroundings I often wore while dreamfaring were vastly inappropriate to my character, a lady of means who'd been a resident of Itania for several summers, if not most of her life. Picturing the elderly king of Redora, I used my chin to point at those surroundings and my eyes to disdain them into submission. Instead of feeling powerful, however, I felt more and more exposed. My cheeks began to feel unpleasantly warm.

“That's it, just like that!” Loye glanced my way, her green eyes dropping down to my feet. Her posture shifted subtly, and suddenly she seemed to be gliding over the cobblestones. “This is how you walk. You tried to teach me before, but it just doesn't feel right.”

“I can see why. It looks complicated.”

“It's not, really. Lead with your stomach and step forward, but more onto the front of your feet, rather than the heel.” She slowed down to demonstrate more clearly, pretending to be distracted by a jewelry display that we were passing by.

With an awkward galumphing sort of gait, I attempted to make my body mimic what I was seeing. In addition to the embarrassed flush I was already sporting, sweat began to bead at my temples. I was becoming increasingly desperate to go back to curl up and hide underneath the counter space in Calden's stall. With excruciating effort using muscles I didn't know I had, I managed to begin to imitate Loye's movements with fair success.

All at once, our strides fell into sync with such mirror perfection that for a few moments our pacing legs and feet reminded me of those of a matched pair of horses stepping regally before a carriage. I almost laughed in the giddy rush of success that washed over me.

“Mind your face,” Loye said through her smiling teeth. She maintained that gentle smile of hers with barely a hint that she'd spoken, and that while nodding a greeting to someone a distance ahead of us.

Ana's expression was appropriately lofty a moment later when we stepped up to a market stall that was stacked to overflowing with rolls of fabrics, sewing patterns, and a few related, overpriced tools for convenience. “Good day, Dor. Have you any sea green linen in that unsightly mess?”


End file.
